


to forge ever onward

by cartoonmoomba



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.3 spoilers, F/M, I thought my Emet-Selch ship was unexpected, You Have Been Warned, but this? this is new, my heart is so full of happiness right now, post 5.3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25864621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartoonmoomba/pseuds/cartoonmoomba
Summary: [5.3 MSQ SPOILERS].“Sit down,” Satella demands past the pins in her mouth and pushes against his chest with one hand. Gently, of course--sometimes she looks over and still expects to see crystal blue and the white of his hair, or worse: no one at all. “Don’t pretend this hasn’t been troubling you. You’ve got two recovering hands, and I’ve got working ones. Seems like there’s a perfect solution to me.”ORThe newest member of the Scions requires a working hairstyle.
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch & Warrior of Light, G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 7
Kudos: 101





	to forge ever onward

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO. I have a lot of feelings about MSQ right now, but this was the most unexpected one. The Exarch had always been firmly in the platonic category, but seeing that ending... I got excited right alongside him about actually adventuring together, and then my brain went "oh no" and my heart went "we can work with this" and _this_ happened not even ten minutes after the last cutscene played.
> 
> I hope everyone had a great time with this patch!

The days immediately after the return of the Scions, plus one exhausted, still confused-readjusting-to-his-body Exarch, are dreamlike in their existence. The Rising Stones is aflutter with nervous and excited energy as well wishers register for time slots to slip into Dawn’s Respite and greet the returned Scions--a duty handled most studiously by Tataru and a brand new clipboard, brought in from her stock just to celebrate the occasion--and Satella finds herself more often than not running under Krile’s commands, a task she is once glad for. She takes temperatures and aetheric readings; massages hands from fingertip to palm and back to encourage blood flow; wipes sweat off perspiring brows in the grip of aether-fuelled nightmares. Her days are spent at bedsides and in the kitchen, making broths and teas and carrying great collections of fire shards as the travellers’ bodies go through the several stages of accepting their aether back into flesh. She is sure to pop across the rift ( _a hop and a skip,_ Alisaie remarks only half sarcastically, hands clenched around a steaming mug of traditional Sharlyan breakfast tea) and let Ryne and Beq Lugg know immediately after the initial tests are taken that all had gone according to plan--including the fusion of the Exarch’s soul with G’raha Tia’s. She had contended with an armful of Ryne sobbing her relief into her clothes before the girl had taken a step back and shooed her off to the Source.

It all still feels unreal. She may have spent all of her time on the First with the Scions, but she had always been aware of the state of their false existence, even if only in the back of her mind. The looming possibility of the tether between their bodies and souls snapping into true oblivion had kept her on her toes, curdling unease in her stomach every time she stepped back on to the First after hearing not-so-great news from Krile about the state of their true forms. Seeing them now, hale and whole with brightening complexions after seeing them only days before immobile and cold as marble--it does things to her soul that make her want to scream from the tops of Revenant's Toll.

With happiness, for once.

The Exarch--G’raha Tia, as he bashfully requested to be called once again--had been a welcome relief. She does not remember the journey she’d taken from Revenant's Toll to the Crystal Tower of her world, so great was her urging at her mount to go _faster_ and so hard was the pounding beat of her heart. She may have had dredges of bitterness over the Exarch putting the Scions into such a dangerous state in the first place lingering, but they were small enough to be cast aside, both in the moment and, eventually, with enough time. She understood why he’d gone to such great lengths, and mourned the plan he’d held of casting himself as the villain and mooring himself out in space; and without him, the Rejoinings would have continued on with the Source none the wiser. It had been, despite it all, a necessary abduction.

And with the Scions now on the road to a full recovery disappearing into the horizon behind her, all she worried about was the pulsing vessel in her pocket and the doors of the Tower greeting her in the distance.

It had felt like a race against no one, except possibly Time--forever her greatest enemy, taking and stealing both slowly and in the blink of an eye. But the gates had moved to open before her, and then again and again, until the throne room was before her once more and G’raha Tia sat sleeping on the throne, tail curled about him and head resting on jutting crystal.

Only then did hesitation slow her steps, and only for a moment. Satella set her chin and clutched his vessel with trembling hands. The last few steps towards him-- _so young_ , her mind marvelled, eyes tracking over skin and hair untouched by the Tower’s demands--felt like an eternity gaping wide with all possibilities on the other side. It could work; it could not. He could open his eyes and recognize her, the Exarch or G’raha Tia; he could pass in sleep with the shock of the merging too much to handle. Or he could turn into a monster, aether unstable and screaming to escape from mortal flesh.

She set the vessel down beside him. One hand rose to brush the hair falling over his face, grown long in his slumber. “Let this work,” she whispered. The ancient chamber gave no response, silent ghosts her only company. “Please. Please, wake up.”

Satella stepped back and clasped her hands before her to hide the trembling. Her fingers spasmed against each other. Slowly, she watched the vessel rest where it did, and then glow not unlike the manner of the Scions’ just a short while ago.

Her breath caught in her throat as it suffused the body of the Miqo’te man, settling over his skin and sinking further in. There was a moment of silence where she did not dare breathe, watching the aether embrace him as its own--and then the vessel’s colour went flat once more, and G’raha remained sleeping where he did.

She counted the beats of her heart. _Please,_ she begged to deities she no longer found it in herself to believe in. _Please let this work._

Her ears twitched: a noise picked up before the rest of her mind could process it. An inhale--she watched his chest rise suddenly, the calm rhythm of before now broken. A groan passing from cracked lips, and then eyelashes fluttering against skin. G’raha Tia stirred from his slumber full years before he had once been meant to, body twitching and adjusting to the world once more.

Satella waited with bated breath. The eyes found hers and cleared. _Red_ , she thought in a daze. _They’re both Allagan red._

A smile curled at the edge of his lips. “My friend,” the Exarch spoke--or tried to, at least. His voice broke into a coughing fit but she was already off and throwing herself against him.

“It worked,” she sobbed into his shoulder, as his arms hesitantly came up around her. “It worked.”

She sits now at his bedside, two days later, as the Scions in the room with them attend to their rehabilitation. Thancred is pacing the room with the help of a carved wooden staff, complaining about muscle aches he hadn’t experienced when only existing as a soul. Urianger and Y’shtola sit together creating motes of elements between them to test the state of their aetheric pool. Alphinaud is in bed catching up on a new treatise released in his absence (something most definitely not in his rehabilitation plan, but Tataru does not yet have it in her to tell him _no_ ). Alisaie sits in a corner practicing movements with a training rapier, its tip capped with rubber.

Compared to them, G’raha’s recovery is going slower on account of his body having been asleep for much longer than theirs. Satella ignores his flustered assurances that he does not need her assistance and makes herself as available to him as she does to the rest of her friends: bringing soups and cups of tea. Scouring bookstores for the latest topics. Bringing in familiar weaponry to test their muscle memory, although “rubber tipped” was most assuredly not what Alisaie had requested.

“Really, it’s quite fine--” She ignores the Exarch’s ( _G’raha,_ she reminds herself) insistence and runs her fingers in his fringe, where it has grown lengthy enough to require sweeping back every seven seconds. She’d counted. The man’s cheeks are flushed nearly as red as his eyes as she takes another bobby pin out of the collection between her lips and pushes it into his hair. “It’s no bother, and I’m well enough to do so myself. Surely there is something else that requires your attention?”

His question trails off uncertainly at the end as she levels him with an unimpressed look. This close together he cannot pretend to not see it, as he is wont to do. “Sit down,” Satella demands past the pins in her mouth and pushes against his chest with one hand. Gently, of course--sometimes she looks over and still expects to see crystal blue and the white of his hair, or worse: no one at all. “Don’t pretend this hasn’t been troubling you. You’ve got two recovering hands, and I’ve got working ones. Seems like there’s a perfect solution to me.”

He acquiesces to her demands, although with ears twitching and tail lashing around him with nerves. Satella sighs. “Stop fidgeting,” she mutters and leans further in to brace her body on his. His body language does not speak to anger or being uncomfortable, and she allows herself the intrusion as she eyes his hair with all the determination of a Warrior of Light. His pale face and brilliant red eyes peer back at her from under it. He’d always worn his bangs long, but now they were unbearably so. If he hadn’t yet determined how to fashion himself--after G’raha or the Exarch; what to do with his clothes, his hair, his mannerisms--she would all too happily give him the time he needed.

But the hair--it was a problem to be solved. The man couldn’t even see himself in a mirror, a fact she had observed since his awakening more than once.

She slides more bobby pins against his head and leans back at last to look over her work. One side has been finished, pins criss crossing in a neat pattern away from his face. A smile pulls at her lips as she reaches up to cup his cheek and tilt his head this way and that. It is a motion done so often with her other friends--Alisaie and Ryne in particular, the both of them as physically affectionate with others as she--that she pays it no mind. “There,” she confirms after a moment, sweeping her hand up to pat at her work. “Looking very pretty.”

An exasperated groan comes from Alisaie’s corner. “Must you have an audience for this?” She complains. Confused, Satella glances to her and then back at G’raha.

He stares back at her, one eye still hidden behind red hair and the other meeting hers as clear as day. He blinks, still half pinned beneath her with her hand on his head, and clears his throat.

Right. He certainly _wasn’t_ Alisaie or Ryne. Fighting the flushing of her cheeks, Satella clambers off him as casual as can be and studiously avoids looking in Alisaie’s direction. “Do you want the other side pinned up?” She gestures with her hands and nearly swallows the remaining two pins still held between her lips. “Or, perhaps a mirror?”

G’raha, bless him, smiles at her despite his own embarrassed visage. “A mirror would be great,” he says warmly, as if she hadn’t just climbed all over him like he was one of her girlfriends all too used and receptive to her casual affections.

 _He really is too nice,_ the thought groans weakly inside her head. “Great,” she says. “I’ll just run to find one for you.”

She avoids looking at the others as she leaves the room in the direction of the baths, where a collection of handhelds can usually be found. Halfway down the hall she screeches to a halt and claps her hands over her burning cheeks as she gives in to her embarrassment. The pins in her mouth wobble, forgotten, and she reaches up to remove them.

 _It’s the face,_ she tells herself. _If he still looked as world-weary as the Exarch, this never would have happened._ After a moment, she sighs and continues on. 


End file.
